Читать книгу Feature Writing and Reporting - Jennifer Brannock Cox - Страница 56

By Jane Stancill and Andrew Carter, The News & Observer⁸

PROLOGUE: After standing for 105 years in the oldest part of the UNC-Chapel Hill campus, Silent Sam fell on Monday, pulled from his pedestal by the protestors’ tug of a rope. Immediately the news became cause for celebration and outrage: celebration for those who saw the statue as a racist symbol of white supremacy, as an ode to soldiers who fought, among other things, for the survival of slavery; outrage for those who viewed the statue as a tribute to Southern heritage, and to lives lost while soldiers fought for a cause they believed in.

To understand how Silent Sam fell is to understand how he rose. This is the story, told in five chapters, of the rise and fall of an 8-foot bronze, boyish depiction of a Confederate soldier who faced north, toward the enemy, for more than a century. It is a story whose final chapter has yet to be written.

Instead of using a traditional feature lede, Stancill and Carter opted for more of a narrative storytelling device, opening with a prologue detailing the current situation to help readers put the subsequent chapters into context as they go.